‘Let It Be Special Edition’ by the Beatles Review: Burnishing an Album’s Tarnished Image

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The record, whose creation caused deep rifts in the band, has been reissued in a remixed version that includes extras, outtakes and more

The Beatles at Twickenham Film Studios on Jan. 7, 1969

Photo: Apple Corps Ltd.

 

‘Let It Be” has always been the Beatles’ problem child. It began as a multimedia back-to-the-roots project, the plan was that the band would rehearse an album’s worth of new material that could be played live, without the electronic wizardry and orchestral sweetening that had become part of their toolbox. They would then perform these new songs in a single concert, perhaps in an exotic setting, which would be filmed and recorded for a television special and an LP. The director Michael Lindsay-Hogg was engaged to capture it all, in sessions that running from Jan. 2 through Jan. 31, 1969.

There were problems from the start. Having grown accustomed to developing their songs in the recording studio, often during all-night sessions, the Beatles were never entirely comfortable with the daytime rehearsals they had scheduled or the persistent filming of their working process, and they disliked the rehearsal venue, Twickenham Film Studios. Squabbles over arrangements led George Harrison to quit the band on Jan. 10, and in negotiating his return he demanded that they abandon Twickenham and all talk of a concert. The sessions continued in the basement studio at the Beatles’ Apple headquarters and on Apple’s rooftop, where on Jan. 30 they held an outdoor session as a concession to the original concert idea.

In the months that followed, the television show was reconfigured as a film, and the LP, assembled by the engineer-producer Glyn Johns and called “Get Back,” was shelved when Phil Spector was brought in to “save” the album by, among other things, slathering treacly orchestral and choral arrangements onto several tracks. By the time the film and album were released, in May 1970, the Beatles had recorded “Abbey Road,” and imploded in the wake of business disputes, leaving Mr. Lindsay-Hogg’s film looking like a chronicle of the band’s dissolution. Mr. Johns’s “Get Back” album had also been quickly bootlegged, leaving Beatles fans looking askance at Spector’s heavy-handed ministrations. The Beatles themselves have described the period as painful, and in 2003 Apple released “Let It Be… Naked,” an attempt to present a Spector-free version of the album.

Photo: Apple Corps Ltd.

Now Apple, which still oversees the Beatles’ legacy, is working hard to change the notion that “Let It Be” was a horrible experience. “Let It Be Special Edition,” a remixed version of the album, was just released in several configurations—including a Super Deluxe version with the remix plus four discs of outtakes and extras (including Mr. Johns’s original version of the album), a Blu-ray with a surround-sound mix and a superbly detailed book—by Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/UMe. A separate book, “Get Back,” edited by John Harris, with photos and transcripts of dialogue from the sessions, was also recently published by Apple and Calloway Arts and Entertainment, and Peter Jackson’s six-hour film, built from mostly unseen footage from the sessions, and also called “The Beatles: Get Back,” will roll out in three parts on Disney+ on Nov. 25, 26 and 27.

Anyone who either objected to or delighted in the liberties that the producer Giles Martin and the engineer Sam Okell took on other Beatles remixes of the past decade—the rebalancing that restored previously suppressed instrumental or vocal touches—will find little difference between the original album and the remix, this time. The new mix is slightly cleaner and more transparent. But instrumental and vocal placements across the stereo soundstage are just as they were, with Spector’s additions intact. And because of the essentially live nature of the basic recordings, there are no previously hidden details to bring to light.

There are gems among the extra material, including a terrific outtake of “One After 909” with temporary Fifth Beatle Billy Preston playing the piano part on a concert grand, rather than on the electric piano he used on the finished album, recorded during the so-called “Rooftop Concert,” as well as versions of “Let It Be” and “Dig a Pony” with sections that were later dropped from each song. More historically than musically notable are embryonic versions of Harrison’s “Something” and Ringo Starr’s “Octopus’s Garden”—both of which ended up on “Abbey Road”—with discussions and advice about how to complete them. It is also good to finally have an official release of Mr. Johns’s “Get Back” album, something Apple should have released instead of the bland “Let It Be… Naked.”

Mostly, though, the bonuses are disappointing. Because the film crew recorded the proceedings on a pair of Nagra mono tape decks, every minute of the sessions (about 120 hours) was recorded, and the full set of Nagra reels has been freely available on internet bootleg sites for the past 20 years. Mr. Martin used a few items from the Nagras, which are the only source for recordings from Twickenham. But he mostly focused on the multitrack sessions from Apple. So Twickenham highlights like the concise, amusing rocker “Suzy’s Parlor,” the fast, electric versions of “Get Back” and “Two of Us,” and the tongue-in-cheek performances of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” “Tennessee” and “The Third Man Theme” were bypassed.

Perhaps these, and some of the more interesting discussions and debates (many of which are included in the “The Beatles: Get Back” book), will figure into Mr. Jackson’s film, the biggest and most tantalizing piece of Apple’s reclamation project. But if Apple really wants to tell the full truth about the making of “Let It Be,” it should make the complete run of Nagra recordings available, either on disc or through a streaming service.